The plant is also called head cabbage or heading cabbage, and in Scotland bowkail, from its rounded shape. The Scots call its stalk a castock, and the British call its head a loaf.

The cultivated cabbage is derived from a leafy wild mustard plant, native to the Mediterranean region, where it is common along the seacoast. Also called sea cabbage and wild cabbage, it was known to the ancient Greeks and Romans; Cato the Elder praised this vegetable for its medicinal properties, declaring that "It is the cabbage which surpasses all other vegetables." The English name derives from the Normanno-Picardcaboche (head), perhaps from boche (swelling, bump). Cabbage was developed by ongoing artificial selection for suppression of the internode length. It is related to the turnip.

Cabbage leaves often display a delicate, powdery, waxy coating called bloom. The sharp or bitter taste sometimes present in cabbage is due to glucosinolate(s).

Uses

The only part of the plant that is normally eaten is the leafy head; more precisely, the spherical cluster of immature leaves, excluding the partially unfolded outer leaves.
The so-called 'cabbage head' is widely consumed raw, cooked, or preserved in a great variety of dishes.

Raw

Raw cabbage is usually sliced into thin strips or shredded for use in salads, such as coleslaw. It can also replace iceberg lettuce in sandwiches. Cabbage is also used raw in Pico de gallo because of its naturally mild spicy flavor.

Cooked

Cabbage is often added to soups or stews. Cabbage soup is popular in central Europe and eastern Europe, and cabbage is an ingredient in some kinds of borscht. Garbure (from Provençal garburo) is a thick soup of cabbage or other vegetables with bacon. Cabbage may be an ingredient in kugel, a baked pudding served as a side dish or dessert. Cabbage is also used in many popular dishes in India.

Boiling tenderizes the leaves and releases sugars, which leads to the characteristic "cabbage" aroma. Boiled cabbage has become stigmatized in North America because of its strong cooking odor and the belief that it causes flatulence. Boiled cabbage as an accompaniment to meats and other dishes can be an excellent source of vitamins and dietary fiber. It is often prepared and served with boiled meat and other vegetables as part of a boiled dinner.
Cabbage rolls, a type of dolma, are an East European and Middle Eastern delicacy. The leaves are softened by parboiling or by placing the whole head of cabbage in the freezer, and then stuffed with a mixture of chopped meat and/or rice. Stuffed cabbage is called holishkes in Yiddish. A vegetable stuffed with shredded cabbage and then pickled is called mango.

Bubble and squeak consists of potatoes and cabbage or, especially formerly, potatoes, cabbage and meat fried together. Potatoes and cabbage or other greens boiled and mashed together make up a dish called colcannon, an Irish Gaelic word meaning white-headed cabbage, grounded in Old Irish terms for cabbage or kale (cāl), head (cend or cenn) and white (find). In the American South and Midland, corn dodgers were boiled as dumplings with cabbage and ham.

Fermented and preserved

Cabbage is the basis for the German sauerkraut, Chinese suan cai and Korean kimchi. To pickle cabbage it is cut fine, placed in a jar, covered with a brine made of its own juice with salt, and left in a warm place for several days to ferment. Sauerkraut, or simply kraut, was historically prepared at home in large batches, as a way of storing food for the winter. The word comes from Old High German sūr (sour) and krūt (herb or cabbage). Cabbage can also be pickled in vinegar with various spices, alone or in combination with other vegetables. (Turnips can be cured in the same way.) Korean baechu kimchi is usually sliced thicker than its European counterpart, and the addition of onions, chillies, minced garlic and ginger is common.

Medicinal properties

Cabbage is an excellent source of Vitamin C. It also contains significant amounts of glutamine, an amino acid, which has anti-inflammatory properties.

It is a source of indol-3-carbinol, or I3C, a compound used as an adjuvent therapy for recurrent respiratory papillomatosis, a disease of the head and neck caused by human papillomavirus (usually types 6 and 11) that causes growths in the airway that can lead to death.

In European folk medicine, cabbage leaves are used to treat acute inflammation. A paste of raw cabbage may be placed in a cabbage leaf and wrapped around the affected area to reduce discomfort. Some claim it is effective in relieving painfully engorged breasts in breastfeeding women.

Varieties

There are many varieties of cabbage based on shape and time of maturity. Cabbages grown late in autumn and in the beginning of winter are called coleworts; their leaves do not form a compact head. "Colewort" may also refer to a young cabbage. The word comes from Latin caulis (stalk of a plant, cabbage) and Old English wyrt (herb, plant, root). A drumhead cabbage has a rounded, flattened head. An oxheart cabbage has an oval or conical head. A pickling cabbage, such as the red-leafed cabbage, is especially suitable for pickling; krautman is the most common variety for commercial production of sauerkraut. Red cabbage is a small, round-headed type with dark red leaves. Savoy cabbage has a round, compact head with crinkled and curled leaves. Winter cabbage will survive the winter in the open in mild regions such as the southern United States; the name is also used for Savoy cabbage. Other traditional varieties include "Late Flat Dutch", "Early Jersey Wakefield" (a conical variety) and "Danish Ballhead" (late, round-headed).

Cultivation

Broadly speaking, cabbage varieties come in two groups, early and late. The early varieties mature in about 45 days. They produce small heads which do not keep well and are intended for consumption while fresh. The late cabbage matures in about 87 days, and produces a larger head.

Cabbage can be started indoors or sowed directly. Like all brassicae, cabbage is a cool season crop, so early and late plantings do better than those maturing in the heat of the summer.

Control of insect pests is important, particularly in commercial production where appearance is a driver of success. The pesticidessevin and malathion are both listed for use on cabbage. A plant collar, consisting of a band of tar paper or similar material, is sometimes placed around the base of the stem of transplanted seedlings to protect them from injury by insects.

Cabbages keep well and were thus a common winter vegetable before refrigeration and long-distance shipping of produce.

Pests

imported cabbage worm, the green larva of the cabbage butterfly or cabbage white, any of several largely white butterflies (family Pieridae, type genus Pieris, garden whites); they include a small cosmopolitan form (P. rapae), called also small white; a larger Old World form (P. brassicae), called also large white; a common North American form ( P. protodice), called also checkered white or southern cabbage butterfly; and the green-veined white (P. napi), occurring in Europe and North America; larvae eat the leaves, are toxic to animals that consume the infested foliage

zebra caterpillar, larva of an American noctuid moth (Ceramica picta); light yellow with a broad black stripe on the back and lateral stripes crossed with white

Related Brassica varieties and species

Besides cabbage proper, the species Brassica oleracea has many distinctive cultivars which are commonly known by other names. They include: broccoli (Italica Group); Brussels sprouts (Gemmifera Group), whose edible small green heads resemble diminutive cabbages; cauliflower (Botrytis Group), whose flower cluster is used as a vegetable; Chinese kale or Chinese broccoli (Alboglabra Group); kale or spring greens, a very hardy cabbage (Acephala group) that has curled, often finely cut leaves which do not form a dense head, and that some consider to be the original form of the cultivated cabbage; collard greens, a type of kale; and kohlrabi (Gongylodes Group), having an edible stem that becomes greatly enlarged, fleshy and turnip-shaped. Hybrids include broccolini (Italica × Alboglabra Group), broccoflower (Italica × Botrytis Group) and choumoelliera or marrow cabbage (cabbage, kohlrabi and kale).

There are two species of Chinese cabbage (lettuce cabbage, pakchoi, pechay) from Asia that somewhat resemble cabbage and are widely used as greens: Brassica chinensis, bok choy or celery cabbage, which forms a loose, chardlike head of dark green leaves, and Brassica pekinensis, or pe-tsai (peh-tsai), forming an elongated compact head of broad, light green leaves. Rape, an annual herb (Brassica napus) of European origin but known only as a cultigen, differs from the cabbage in its deeply lobed leaves, which are not hairy like those of the turnip.

Other 'cabbage' plants

A number of other non-cruciferous plants bear the name "cabbage" or are likened to it by their appearance, though many are not food plants with parts for human consumption.

Several palms called cabbage palm or cabbage tree have a terminal bud (cabbage, palm cabbage or palmito) eaten like cabbage as a vegetable, including:

squaw cabbage (Indian lettuce, Montia perfoliata), a succulent herb; or any of various plants of the family Brassicaceae, especially of the genera Caulanthus and Streptanthus, believed to have been used as potherbs by the Indians

water cabbage (Nymphaea odorata), a white water lily

water lettuce (also called water cabbage, Pistia stratiotes), a common tropical floating plant forming a rosette of spongy, wedge-shaped leaves

wild cabbage, a succulent herb (Caulanthus crassicaulis) of the family Brassicaceae that has edible foliage

sea-otter's-cabbage (bladder kelp, sea turnip), a brown alga

Linguistic and vernacular associations

During World War II, "kraut" (cabbage) was a racial slur for a German soldier or civilian.

A thick-witted person may be called a cabbagehead. In Hebrew, the term "rosh kruv" (cabbagehead) implies stupidity.

The French use a term of endearment, "mon petit chou" (of a man/boy) or "ma petite chou" (of a woman/girl), equivalent to "darling" but translated literally as "my little cabbage" in school French textbooks in England since the late 1950s. This is still used today, as can be seen in this extract from Shamrocks Falling by P A Matthews:

“See there ma petite chou, now everything is worked out.”

Patricia turned and walked back to the desk. “Gérard, why must you call me ma petite chou all the time?”
“Ma chérie, it is an endearment. If you understood that in French…”
She cut him off mid sentence. “I know what it means Gérard. Even with my limited French vocabulary I know that it means my small cabbage.”
''“But that is not the endearment. You do not understand…”

The word also refers, much more complimentarily, to a pâtisserie item called "chou à la crème", a sphere of light airy pastry split and sandwiched with a thick layer of whipped or confectioner's cream. In addition, it is also used for a soft, cabbage-shaped ornament or rosette of fabric used in women's wear, such as a knot of ribbons on a dress or a crushed crown on a hat. "Chou" comes from the Latin caulis (stalk).

In England, cabbage is rarely used slang for cash, especially paper money or bank notes. It is also used vulgarly for a person in a vegetative state, and by extension "cabbaging" means "lazing about".